WORKING IT: David Robertson delivers during a scoreless eighth inning, his 10th appearance in 15 September Reuters games. Photo: REUTERS

Russell Martin slugged a patented Yankee Stadium home run to rightfield yesterday, and the home team had itself an early, five-run advantage. You wondered: Would this be the day?

Would this be the day the Yankees, locked into a dogfight to qualify for the playoffs, gave their top relief pitchers a day off? It felt like cause for a parade up East 161st Street.

“Yeah, you always hope that, especially when you get a lead like that, five-run lead,” setup man David Robertson said. “You’re always hoping that it’s going to add on.”

Robertson spoke in a happy clubhouse, but a fatigued one, too. The Yankees won again, their second straight, fourth in five games and seventh in 11, maintaining exclusive occupancy of the American League East penthouse. Yet their 6-4 defeat of the Rays came after Robertson, Rafael Soriano and Boone Logan punched their time cards once again.

“We’re all a little tired,” Robertson said. “It’s that point of the year. It’s just been a lot of really tight games lately. It feels like the same guys keep going out there day after day.”

Perception, meet reality. As provided by the Yankees’ media relations department, 23 of the Yankees’ last 28 games have been decided by three runs or less. Of their seven victories in the recent fun, six have come by three runs or less, and the one exception— their 13-3 thumping of the Orioles on Sept. 9—began as a 5-3 contest during which both Logan and Joba Chamberlain pitched.

Logan has pitched in 11 of 15 September games, Robertson 10, Chamberlain eight and Soriano seven. Soriano picked up his 40th save yesterday, when he pitched a scoreless ninth, and remember, he didn’t take over the closer’s job until May 10.

Cody Eppley (seven games in September) and Clay Rapada (five) comprise the next tier in Joe Girardi’s arena of trust. In all, the Yankees’ bullpen has a 3.02 ERA for September. “The great thing is, you know we have a day off [today],” Girardi said. “We’ve gotten some pitchers back, which should help. … I think as we move forward, our bullpen will get deeper, because of the addition of Phelpsie out there.”

“Phelpsie,” you might have guessed, is David Phelps, the valuable rookie who shifted from the starting rotation back to the bullpen to make room for Andy Pettitte’s return start tomorrow against Toronto. He marked his return to the relief corps yesterday by picking up two outs to close the seventh.

Are the Yankees (83-63) out of the woods now?

“They’re going to be OK,” one scout on site said, “because of their schedule.”

The Yankees now have just three games remaining against a team withawinning record, as stunning Oakland will visit the Stadium next weekend. Otherwise, there are seven games against Toronto, three against Boston and three against Minnesota to total 13 games featuring clubs with losing records.

Perhaps that slate will help this situation. Or perhaps the close games will continue, further straining the bullpen.

“I haven’t heard any chirping from anyone else in the bullpen saying that they’re sore,” Logan said. “Everyone seems pretty strong. …Even if we are sore, I couldn’t tell you if anyone was. We want to win these games.”

Of course, they also want to win the World Series. You wonder whether the Yankees will burn out any engines just getting to October. Or whether Girardi should expand his circle of trust to include, say, former valued reliever Cory Wade. Or maybe a combination of Phelps and improved offense and starting pitching will ease the bullpen’s burden.

“Our next series, we could get a lot of runs and youmight not see us pitch at all,” Robertson said optimistically. “So it’s just a matter of how the game plays out.”

Or, as Girardi put it, regarding today being the Yankees’ final day off of the regular season: “They’d better rest. Because we still have a grind left.”